University researchers have been branded “hypocrites” for denouncing air travel as bad for the planet but ultimately flying to a conference. this era There is more.
Around a third of academics at one of the UK's top universities have attended at least one conference in the past year, a study has found, despite the majority expressing concerns about aviation emissions.
“There's a degree of hypocrisy here: academics know flying is bad for the environment,” said Jonas De Vos, a professor at University College London and lead author of the study. “Yet we still fly to international conferences regularly and go to [make the argument] Society should be more sustainable.
The aviation industry is estimated to contribute about 4% to global warming, and almost all climate scientists agree that air travel needs to be reduced to meet the Paris 1.5°C target. During the COVID-19 pandemic, conferences and other events have moved online.
However, in a study published in the journal global environmental changeDeVos and his colleagues describe how flight is “deeply integrated into the way academic systems around the world work.”
They added that aviation emissions are produced by a small proportion of the global population, meaning they are often seen as a “particularly unjust” form of pollution. “Academics are among a group of people who enjoy a privileged lifestyle but live a highly unsustainable lifestyle,” they wrote.
“Despite the increasing amount of academic research and teaching on environmental sustainability… air transport remains a significant contributor to academic carbon footprints, even among academics studying environmental or climate topics.”
The new study provides one of the most detailed snapshots yet of the attitudes of researchers, lecturers and other university staff towards flying and how they end up traveling. More than 1,100 UCL members completed the survey. More than 80% said flying is harmful to the planet.
Researchers often feel pressure to travel, he said, because presenting work at international conferences is considered necessary to win promotions and grants.
Three-quarters of academics agreed that international conferences should be held in cities easily accessible by high-speed trains, that trains should be cheaper and rail networks should be expanded. It was felt that online alternatives to traditional conferences did not offer the same networking opportunities.
On the NoFlyClimateSci.org website, several climate scientists explain why they decided to cut back on flying. Among them was Dr Lennart de Nooijer of the Royal Netherlands Institute for Marine Research, who described his unease about work travel when he realized many colleagues planned to stay for personal holidays after meetings in Chile. “Isn’t part of the appeal of attending a conference the sheer joy of visiting other countries?” he said.
